Many consumer packaged products utilize flexible sheet-like materials or films that are formed into pouch-like packages that have one or more sealed closures and enclose a volume, which contains all or a portion of the product. When a product includes a plurality of types of elements, one or more inner packages can be employed to contain each type of element separately.
In order to minimize packaging material requirements, reduce an overall size/volume of the package and/or increase manufacturing flexibility in packaging a variety of offerings having at least one common type of element, it is desirable to enclose one of the plurality of elements directly within the outer package and the remaining one or more elements within one or more individual inner packages, such that an outer surface of each inner package directly interfaces with the one element enclosed directly within the outer package. However, compatibility of the outer surface of each inner package with the element enclosed directly within the outer package needs to be ensured, for example, if the one element is a substance that may be vulnerable to degradation and/or contamination that impairs the integrity thereof. Such elements include, for example, an edible material (i.e. food item), a pharmaceutical, a cleaning material, and a health and/or beauty material, any of which can be in a liquid, solid, semi-solid or particulate form. Alternately, or in addition, vulnerability of the integrity of an outer surface of each inner package to degradation by exposure to the element enclosed directly within the outer package should be considered.